History of the Labour Party – The Labour Party History of the Labour Party Kinnock and the policy review With Labour heavily defeated in the 1979 election, the party began a new period of soul-searching. Internal debates about the party constitution dominated, and led eventually to the forming of a breakaway group, the Social Democratic Party, in 1981. Michael Foot, the veteran left-winger, was elected leader but he was hampered by divisions within the party and proved unable to reverse Labour's decline in support. With Labour moving further to the left, the 1983 election resulted in a crushing defeat. Labour gained 27.6 per cent, its lowest showing since 1918 and not much above the Liberal/SDP Alliance. Hope for a revival in Labour's fortunes came from Welsh MP Neil Kinnock, who replaced Michael Foot as leader in 1983. Kinnock first sought to sideline the extreme left within the party, such as the group Militant, and then to restore Labour's image with the general public.

His speech to the 1985 Party Conference, where he attacked Militant from the platform, was seen as a sign of the new Labour leader's courage and commitment to change. This was followed by changes to Labour's image, headed by a new Campaigns and Communications directorate under Peter Mandelson. A visible sign of the changes afoot was the replacement of the party's emblem - the red flag - by a red rose at the 1986 conference. Even with such changes, Kinnock was unable to recover much ground and Labour still lost the 1987 election heavily. More thorough-going reform was necessary and therefore the party began a process of policy review. The outcome, Meet the Challenge, Make the Change, ended Labour's commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament, high taxation and old-style nationalisation. Labour's fourth successive election defeat was a major shock to the party. Kinnock's successor, Scottish lawyer John Smith, promised to continue the process of reform, including tackling the trade union block.

At the 1993 Party Conference Smith won the vote on One Member One Vote (OMOV), removing direct union representation in parliamentary selections, by the smallest of margins, and largely due to the last-minute speech by John Prescott. If he was careful in his dealings with the party, in the Commons Smith was less restrained. Immediately after the election the Tories were wrong-footed by the crisis in sterling and exit from the Exchange Rate Mechanism. Black Wednesday as 16 September 1992 became known, was a gift to Smith, who used his considerable parliamentary skills to attack the Conservatives. With record-breaking (for the time) local election results in 1994, John Smith was rightly optimistic about the future of the Party. "A chance to serve, that is all we ask", Smith told a gathering of Labour supporters on 11 May 1994. The event was to be his last. Early the next morning he suffered a massive heart attack. Just as with Gaitskell in 1963, Labour had lost a leader on the verge of power. New Labour The ensuing leadership contest saw the election of Tony Blair, the youngest-ever leader of the Labour Party.

Blair was widely known to be a moderniser and his leadership election statement was clear that Labour must be reformed radically if it was to win office again. Yet for any still in doubt, Blair showed his true intentions in his first speech to party conference as leader, when he called for the updating of Clause IV of the party's constitution. While opposed by some traditionalists, the proposed change won overwhelming support at a special conference in April 1995. This was followed in 1996 by the publication of New Labour, New Life for Britain, the draft manifesto that was discussed and voted upon by party members across the country. Labour's agenda was fully costed, to avoid the arguments over tax that had dogged them in 1992, and centred on five pledges: education; crime; health; jobs and economic stability. Party members gave the proposals clear endorsement - with 95 per cent backing the plans. The 1997 election campaign saw the Tories in decline - over sleaze, tax rises and division. Labour's campaign, by way of contrast, was smooth and efficiently run.

The party targeted 90 marginal and 216 key seats - the constituencies it had to win if it was to gain a majority. In the event new Labour was shown to have underestimated its popular appeal, winning a landslide total of 418 Labour MPs, including a record 101 Labour women, and a majority of 179. As a Labour Prime Minister, Tony Blair gave new direction to the country with the introduction of a National Minimum Wage, one million more jobs, smaller class sizes in primary schools, and the biggest ever sustained investment in the NHS. On 7 June 2001 Tony Blair led Labour to a second successive victory in a General Election, winning by another landslide. Labour won a majority of 167. Four years later, on 5 May 2005, Labour achieved a first in its history: a third consecutive term in government. Labour had run a positive campaign on investment in public services including the slogan "If you value it, vote for it" in the run up to polling day. The Tories, in contrast, led by Michael Howard had run a negative campaign, largely on immigration and crime. Labour's majority was 67.

On the steps of Downing Street the next day, Tony Blair said: "It's a tremendous honour and privilege to be elected for a third term and I'm acutely conscious of that honour and that privilege. When I stood here first eight years ago I was a lot younger but also a lot less experienced. Today as well as having in our minds the priorities that people want, we, I, the government, has the knowledge, as well as the determination and commitment, to deliver them." April 13, 1992: Labour leader Neil Kinnock resigns after surprise election defeat - BT April 13, 1992: Labour leader Neil Kinnock resigns after surprise election defeat Three days after the Conservative party defied the pollsters to win a fourth successive General Election, Labour’s Neil Kinnock stood down after nine years as Leader of the Opposition. Print this story Neil Kinnock resigned as leader of the Labour Party on this day in 1992, three days after their defeat to John Major’s Conservatives in one of the most unexpected General Election results since the end of World War II.

Mr Kinnock, MP for the Welsh constituency of Islwyn (previously Bedwellty) since 1970, stepped down after nine years, making him the longest-serving Leader of the Opposition in history. His deputy, Roy Hattersley, also resigned. He announced his decision in a statement read out at Westminster, in which he was unequivocal in blaming the party’s election loss at the door of the right-wing press. “I express no bitterness when I say that the Conservative-supporting press has enabled the Tory Party to win yet again when the Conservative Party could not have secured victory for itself on the basis of its record, its programme or its character,” he said. Mr Kinnock had been elected leader in the aftermath of Labour’s heavy defeat in the 1983 General Election under Michael Foot. He began to reform the party to bring it to the centre-left, fighting to rid it of its Trotskyite Militant wing. He also helped persuade the party to abandon some of its less popular policies, such as unilateral nuclear disarmament and nationalisation.

Toward the end of Mrs Thatcher’s time in office, Labour were consistently ahead in the polls by 10 points or more, though her resignation and the appointment of John Major as Conservative leader gave the government a new lease of life. Nevertheless, in the run-up to the 1992 election most polls still suggested a narrow Labour victory. Instead, the Tories won the election with a 21-seat majority. Mr Kinnock would continue in office until July 18, when his shadow chancellor John Smith was elected as the new Labour leader with Margaret Beckett his deputy. He became a member of the European Commission in 1995 and its vice-president in 1999. Do you remember Neil Kinnock’s resignation? What sort of Prime Minister might he have been? Let us know what you think in the Comments section below. Photo credits: PA, Associated Newspapers/REX/Shutterstock, Nick Skinner/REX/Shutterstock Neil Kinnock – Did you know? The son of a miner from Tredegar, Wales, Neil Kinnock trained as a teacher and worked in education until his selection as Labour candidate for Bedwellty in 1970.

After Labour’s defeat in the 1979 election, party leader James Callaghan selected Kinnock for the shadow cabinet as Education Secretary; he would retain this post after Michael Foot became leader in 1980. After Foot’s resignation in the wake of Labour’s poorest election performance for 52 years, Kinnock faced Roy Hattersley in a leadership contest, which he won with 71% of the vote. Hattersley then defeated Michael Meacher to become deputy leader. While broadly in support of the aims of striking miners in 1984-85 , he was against the tactics of the NUM led by Arthur Scargill, whom he later admitted he detested. He fought a long and damaging battle with Militant, expelling the high-profile deputy leader of Liverpool Council Derek Hatton in 1986. Five sitting far-left Labour MPs were deselected for the 1992 election. On April 1, 1992, Labour held a lead in all major opinion polls.

A party rally in Sheffield that evening (pictured above), later described as ‘triumphalist’ with Kinnock repeating “we’re all right!” to a cheering audience, was said to have turned some voters off, though Kinnock did not agree. He retired from the European Commission in 2004, and in January 2005 was made a life peer, elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Kinnock of Bedwellty. His son Stephen is now MP for Aberavon. Kinnock was a prominent supporter of Ed Milliband’s leadership campaign in 2010, saying that he would unify Labour – but in early 2016 said he found it difficult to see how Jeremy Corbyn could be elected prime minister.

Neil Kinnock - Wikispooks Neil Kinnock 2 October 1983 - 18 July 1992 Preceded by 2 October 1983 - 18 July 1992 Deputy 18 June 1970 - 16 February 1995 Shortly after his February 1990 release from jail, Nelson Mandela meets Neil and Glenys Kinnock Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock (born 28 March 1942) is a British Labour Party politician. Neil Kinnock served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1970 until 1995, first for Bedwellty constituency and then for Islwyn. He was the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1983 until the Labour Party leadership election in 1992, making him the longest-serving Leader of the Opposition in British political history to date, and the longest never to have become Prime Minister.

Following Labour's fourth consecutive defeat in the 1992 general election, Neil Kinnock resigned as leader and resigned from the House of Commons three years later to become the European Union's Transport Commissioner. He went on to become the Vice-President of the European Commission under Romano Prodi from 1999 to 2004. In January 2005, he was elevated to the peerage becoming Baron Kinnock of Bedwellty in the County of Gwent. Soon after his release from prison in apartheid South Africa on 11 February 1990, Nelson Mandela chose Sweden as his first port of call in Europe because of all the support the ANC had received over many years from the Swedish government, especially from prime minister Olof Palme who was assassinated by agents of the apartheid regime in February 1986. Ingvar Carlsson , Sweden's new prime minister, invited British politicians Neil and Glenys Kinnock to come to Stockholm in April 1990 and greet Mr Mandela . That meeting was recalled by Neil Kinnock in a television interview on 8 December 2013 (three days after Nelson Mandela 's death).

[1] Contents 12 External links Early life Neil Kinnock, an only child, was born in Tredegar, Wales. [2] His father Gordon Herbert Kinnock was a former coal miner who suffered from dermatitis and later worked as a labourer; and his mother Mary Kinnock was a district nurse. [3] [4] Gordon died of a heart attack in November 1971 aged 64; [5] Mary died the following month aged 61. In 1953, 11-year-old Neil Kinnock began his secondary education at Lewis School, Pengam, which he later criticised for its record on caning in schools. He went on to the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, obtaining a degree in Industrial Relations and History in 1965. A year later, Kinnock obtained a postgraduate diploma in education. Between August 1966 and May 1970, he worked as a tutor for the Workers' Educational Association (WEA). [6] He was married to Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead, Glenys Kinnock in 1967.

They have two children – son Stephen (born January 1970), and daughter Rachel (born 1971). They now have four grandchildren. Member of Parliament In June 1969 Neil Kinnock won the Labour Party nomination for the constituency of Bedwellty in Wales (later Islwyn) for the 1970 general election]]. He was elected on 18 June 1970 and became a member of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party in October 1978. On becoming an MP for the first time, his father said "Remember Neil, MP stands not just for Member of Parliament, but also for Man of Principle". Labour government policy at the time was in favour of devolution for Wales, but the wider party was split. Calling himself a 'unionist', Kinnock was one of six south Wales Labour MPs to campaign against devolution on centralist, essentially British-nationalist grounds. He dismissed the idea of a Welsh identity, saying that "between the mid-sixteenth century and the mid-eighteenth century Wales had practically no history at all, and even before that it was the history of rural brigands who have been ennobled by being called princes".

[7] In the Wales referendum 1979, the proposal for devolution was rejected. Following Labour's defeat in the 1979 general election, James Callaghan appointed Neil Kinnock to the Shadow Cabinet as Education spokesman. His ambition was noted by other MPs, and David Owen 's opposition to the changes to the electoral college was thought to be motivated by the realisation that they would favour Kinnock's succession. He remained as Education spokesman following the resignation of Jim Callaghan as party leader and the election of Michael Foot as his successor in late 1980. He was known as a left-winger, and gained prominence for his attacks on Margaret Thatcher 's handling of the Falklands War in 1982. Leadership of the Labour Party First period (1983–1987) After Labour's heavy election defeat in June 1983, the almost 70-year-old Michael Foot resigned as leader and from the outset it was expected that Kinnock would succeed him.

He was finally elected as Labour Party leader on 2 October 1983, with 71% of the vote, and Roy Hattersley was elected as his deputy; their prospective partnership was considered to be a 'dream ticket'. [8] His first period as party leader – between the 1983 and 1987 elections – was dominated by his struggle with the hard left, then still strong in the party. Kinnock was determined to move the party's political standing to a centre-left position. [9] Although Kinnock had come from the Tribune Group left of the party, he parted company with many of his former allies after his appointment to the Shadow Cabinet. In 1981, when still Labour's Education spokesman, Kinnock was alleged to have effectively scuppered Tony Benn 's attempt to replace Denis Healey as Labour's deputy leader by first supporting the candidacy of the more traditionalist Tribunite John Silkin and then urging Silkin supporters to abstain on the second, run-off, ballot. All this meant that Kinnock had made plenty of enemies on the left by the time he was elected as leader, though a substantial number of former Bennites gave him strong backing.

He was almost immediately in serious difficulty as a result of Arthur Scargill's decision to lead his union, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) into a national strike (in opposition to pit closures) without a members' ballot. The NUM was widely regarded as the labour movement's praetorian guard and the strike convulsed the Labour movement. Kinnock supported the aim of the strike – which he famously dubbed the "case for coal" – but, as an MP from a mining area, was bitterly critical of the tactics employed. In 1985 he made his criticisms public in a speech to Labour's conference: [10] The strike's defeat early in the year, [11] and the bad publicity associated with the entryism practised by the Militant tendency were the immediate background for the 1985 Labour Party conference. [12] Earlier in the year left-wing councils had protested at Government restriction of their budgets by refusing to set budgets, resulting in a budget crisis in Militant-dominated Liverpool City Council. Kinnock attacked Militant and their conduct in Liverpool in one of the best remembered passages of any post-war British political speech: "I'll tell you what happens with impossible promises.

You start with far-fetched resolutions. They are then pickled into a rigid dogma, a code, and you go through the years sticking to that, out-dated, misplaced, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end in the grotesque chaos of a Labour council – a Labour council! – hiring taxis to scuttle round a city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers. "I'm telling you <amid a deafening chorus of boos>, I'm telling you, and you'll listen, you can't play politics with people's jobs and people's services." One Liverpool MP, Eric Heffer, a member of the NEC left the conference stage in disgust at Kinnock's comments. [13] In June 1986, the Labour Party finally expelled the deputy leader of Liverpool council, the high profile Militant supporter Derek Hatton, who was found guilty of "manipulating the rules of the district Labour party". [14] By 1986, the party's position appeared to strengthen further with excellent local election results and a thorough rebranding of the party under the direction of Kinnock's director of communications Peter Mandelson.

[15] Labour, now sporting a continental social democratic style emblem of a rose, appeared to be able to run the governing Conservative Party close, but Margaret Thatcher did not let Labour's makeover go unchallenged. The Conservatives' 1986 conference was well-managed, and effectively relaunched the Conservatives as a party of radical free-market liberalism. Labour suffered from a persistent image of extremism, especially as Kinnock's campaign to root out Militant dragged on as figures on the hard left of the party tried to stop its progress. Opinion polls showed that voters favoured retaining Britain's nuclear weapons and believed that the Conservatives would be better than Labour at defending the country. [16] 1987 general election In early 1987, Labour lost a by-election in Greenwich to the Social Democratic Party's Rosie Barnes. As a result, Labour faced the 1987 election in some danger of coming third in the popular vote. In secret, Labour's aim became to secure second place. [17] Labour fought a professional campaign that at one point scared the Tories into thinking they might lose.

Mandelson and his team had revolutionised Labour's communications – a transformation symbolised by a party election broadcast popularly known as "Kinnock: The Movie". [18] This was directed by Hugh Hudson and featured Kinnock's 1985 conference speech, and shots of him and Glenys walking on the Great Orme in Llandudno (so emphasising his appeal as a family man and associating him with images of Wales away from the coalmining communities where he grew up), and a speech to that year's Welsh Labour Party conference asking why he was the "first Kinnock in a thousand generations" to go to university. Joe Biden, who was at the time the Delaware Senator and presidential candidate, and later the US Vice-President, plagiarised lines from the speech for his own campaign speeches in the summer of 1987. [19] On polling day, Labour easily took second place, but with only 31 per cent to the SDP-Liberal Alliance's 22 per cent. [20] Labour was still more than ten percentage points behind the Conservatives, who retained a three-figure majority in the House of Commons.

However, the Conservative government's majority had come down from 144 in 1983 to 102. [21] Significantly, it had gained 20 seats at the election. [22] Labour won extra seats in Scotland, Wales and Northern England, but lost ground particularly in Southern England and London, where the Tories still dominated. Second period (1987–1992) A few months after the election, Kinnock gained brief attention in the United States in August 1987 when it was discovered that then-US senator Joe Biden of Delaware plagiarised one of Kinnock's speeches during his 1988 presidential campaign in a speech at a Democratic debate in Iowa. [23] This led to Biden's withdrawing from the race. [24] The second period of Kinnock's leadership was dominated by his drive to reform the party's policies to gain office. This began with an exercise dubbed the policy review, the most high-profile aspect of which was a series of consultations with the public known as "Labour Listens" in the autumn of 1987.

[25] After "Labour Listens", the party went on, in 1988, to produce a new statement of aims and values—meant to supplement and supplant the formulation of Clause IV of the Labour Party's constitution (though, crucially, this was not actually replaced until 1995 under the leadership of Tony Blair ) and was closely modelled on Anthony Crosland's social-democratic thinking—emphasising equality rather than public ownership. At the same time the commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament was dropped, and reforms of Party Conference and the National Executive meant that local parties lost much of their ability to influence policy. In 1988, Neil Kinnock was challenged by Tony Benn for the party leadership. Later many identified this as a particularly low period in Kinnock's leadership—as he appeared mired in internal battles after five years of leadership and the Conservatives still dominating the scene and ahead in the opinion polls. In the end, though, Kinnock won a decisive victory over Benn and would soon enjoy a substantial rise in support.

[26] The policy review—reporting in 1989—coincided with Labour's move ahead in the polls as the poll tax row was destroying Conservative support, and Labour won big victories in local by-elections. n December 1989, he abandoned the Labour policy on closed shops — a decision seen by many as a move away from traditional socialist policies to a more Europe-wide agenda, and also a move to rid the party of its image of being run by the unions. [27] Neil Kinnock was also perceived as scoring in debates over Margaret Thatcher in the Commons — previously an area in which he was seen as weak — and finally Michael Heseltine challenged Thatcher's leadership. She resigned on 28 November 1990 to be succeeded by John Major . Kinnock greeted Thatcher's resignation by describing it as "very good news" and demanded an immediate general election. [28] Public reaction to Major's elevation was highly positive. A new Prime Minister and the fact that Kinnock was now current leader of a major party reduced the impact of calls for "Time for a Change".

Neil Kinnock's showing in the opinion polls dipped; before Thatcher's resignation, Labour had been up to 10 points ahead of the Tories in the opinion polls (an Ipsos MORI poll in April 1990 had actually shown Labour more than 20 points ahead of the Tories), but many opinion polls were actually showing the Tories with more support than Labour, in spite of the deepening recession. [29] By now Militant had finally been routed in the party, and their two MPs were expelled at the end of 1991. The majority in the group were now disenchanted with entryism, and choose to function outside Labour's ranks, and to take advantage of opportunities created by Margaret Thatcher 's unpopular 'poll tax'. 1992 general election, backbenches and retirement In the three years leading up to the 1992 election, Labour had consistently topped the opinion polls, with 1991 seeing the Tories (rejuvenated by the arrival of a new leader in John Major the previous November) snatch the lead off Labour more than once before Labour regained it.

[30] Since Major's election as Conservative leader (and becoming Prime Minister), Kinnock had spent the end of 1990 and most of 1991 putting pressure on Major to hold the election that year, but Major had held out and insisted that there would be no general election in 1991. In the run-up to the election, held on 9 April 1992, most opinion polls had suggested that the election would end in a hung parliament or a narrow Labour majority. [31] In the 1992 election, Labour made considerable progress – reducing the Conservative majority to just 21 seats. It came as a shock to many when the Conservatives won a majority, but the "triumphalism" perceived by some observers of a Labour party rally in Sheffield (together with Kinnock's performance on the podium) may have helped put floating voters off.

[32] Although internal polls suggested no impact, while public polls suggested a decline in support had already occurred, [33] most of those directly involved in the campaign believe that the rally really came to widespread attention only after the electoral defeat itself, [34] with Kinnock himself changing his mind to a rejection of its negative impact over time. [35] [36] On the day of the general election, The Sun newspaper ran an "infamous" [37] front page featuring Kinnock (headline: 'If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights') that he blamed in his resignation speech for losing Labour the election, along with other newspapers who had backed the Conservatives in the run-up to the election. [38] The following day's headline in The Sun was the triumphalist 'It's The Sun Wot Won It', which Rupert Murdoch, many years later at his April 2012 appearance before the Leveson Inquiry, stated was both "tasteless and wrong" and led to the editor Kelvin MacKenzie receiving a reprimand.

The Labour supporting Daily Mirror had backed Kinnock in the 1987 election and again in 1992. [39] Less unexpected was the Financial Times backing of Kinnock at the 1992 election. Kinnock himself later claimed to have half-expected his defeat in the 1992 election and proceeded to turn himself into a media personality, even hosting a chat show on BBC Wales and twice appearing – with considerable success – on the topical panel show Have I Got News For You within a year of the defeat. Many years later, he returned to appear as a guest host of the programme. Neil Kinnock announced his resignation as Labour Party leader on 13 April 1992, ending eight and a half years in the role – making him the longest serving opposition leader in British political history. He had gained this distinction in November 1990, and no subsequent opposition party leader has yet matched this record. [40] John Smith, previously Shadow Chancellor, was his successor as party leader. [41] He remains on the Advisory Council of the Institute for Public Policy Research, which he helped set up in the 1980s.

He was an enthusiastic supporter of Ed Miliband's campaign to lead the Labour Party in 2010, and was reported as telling activists, when Ed Miliband won, "We've got our party back". [42] EC Transport Commissioner In 1995, marking the end of his 25 years in parliament, Neil Kinnock was appointed one of Britain's two members of the European Commission, which he served first as Transport Commissioner under President Jacques Santer. [43] This came less than a year after the death of his successor as Labour leader John Smith and the election of Tony Blair as the party's new leader. [44] Support for a Lockerbie Inquiry On 23 February 1997, former British diplomat Patrick Haseldine sought to enlist the EC Transport Commissioner's support for a Judicial Inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing . On 3 March 1997, Neil Kinnock's office replied that Neil Kinnock "read your letter to Mr Pickles , MP with interest.

I regret, however, that it would not be appropriate for him, in his capacity as European Commissioner, to express views about the desirability of a judicial inquiry." However, on 12 December 2013, Kinnock responded to a subsequent email from Haseldine that "I am prepared to support the call for an UN Inquiry" into the deaths of UN Officials Dag Hammarskjöld and Bernt Carlsson ". EC Vice-President In 1999, Neil Kinnock was obliged to resign as part of the forced, collective resignation of the Commission, but there was never any suggestion that he himself had done anything corrupt. He was re-appointed to the Commission under new President Romano Prodi and now became one of the Vice-Presidents of the European Commission. His term of office as a Commissioner was due to expire on 30 October 2004, but was delayed owing to the withdrawal of the new Commissioners. During this second term of office on the Commission, he was responsible for introducing new staff regulations for EU officials, a significant feature of which was substantial salary cuts for everyone employed after 1 May 2004, reduced pension prospects for many others, and gradually worsening employment conditions.

This made him disliked by many EU staff members, although the pressure on budgets that largely drove these changes had actually been imposed on the Commission from above by the Member States in Council. British Council In February 2004 it was announced that, with effect from 1 November 2004, Neil Kinnock would become Chairman of the British Council . Coincidentally, at the same time, his son Stephen Kinnock became head of the British Council office in St Petersburg, Russia. Lord Kinnock resigned as Chairman in the summer of 2009. [45] Life peerage At the end of October 2004, it was announced that Neil Kinnock would become a member of the House of Lords (intending to be a working peer), when he was able to leave his EU responsibilities. He was introduced to the House of Lords on 31 January 2005, after being created Baron Kinnock of Bedwellty in the County of Gwent.

[46] [47] On assuming his seat Neil Kinnock stated: "I accepted the kind invitation to enter the House of Lords as a working peer for practical political reasons." When his peerage was first announced, he said, "It will give me the opportunity... to contribute to the national debate on issues like higher education, research, Europe and foreign policy." His peerage meant that the Labour and Conservative parties were equal in numbers in the upper house of Parliament (since then, the number of Labour members has overtaken the number of Conservative members). Kinnock was a long-time critic of the House of Lords, and his acceptance of a peerage led Will Self to accuse him of hypocrisy. [48] [49] Personal life (L to R) daughter Johanna, wife Helle , Stephen Kinnock MP , dad Neil and mum Glenys on Thursday 7 May 2015 Neil Kinnock is married to Glenys Kinnock , Britain's Minister for Africa and the United Nations from 2009 to 2010, and a Labour Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 1994 to 2009.

When she was made a life peer in 2009, they became one of the few couples to both hold titles in their own right. The two met while studying at Cardiff University, where they were known as "the power and the glory" (Glenys the power), and they married on 25 March 1967. [50] Previously living together in Peterston-Super-Ely, a village near the western outskirts of Cardiff, in 2008 they moved to Tufnell Park, London, to be closer to their daughter and grandchildren. [51] They have a son, Stephen and a daughter, Rachel, who works for Ed Miliband . [52] Stephen Kinnock is married to Helle Thorning-Schmidt , Prime Minister of Denmark (2011-2015) and leader of the Danish Social Democrat party. [53] Stephen was assistant director of the British Council in Sierra Leone, head of the British Council office in St Petersburg and used to work at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

On 7 May 2015, Stephen Kinnock was elected Member of Parliament for the safe Labour seat for Aberavon in South Wales. Rachel was in the Political Office at 10 Downing Street under Gordon Brown . On 18 January 2009, Glenys Kinnock revealed on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show that she and Neil Kinnock had received a personal invitation from Joe Biden to attend the inauguration of Barack Obama and Biden on 20 January 2009 at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. Biden was elected Vice-President of the United States in 2008, but twenty years earlier had made the mistake of copying one of Kinnock's speeches. BBC Politics 97 5.8 3.8 Despite entering the campaign as the underdog, John Major brought the Tories their fourth successive election victory Shortly after the election, Neil Kinnock resigned as Labour leader and Roy Hattersley resigned the deputy leadership. They were replaced by John Smith and Margaret Beckett respectively. Although the Conservatives were victorious, they suffered significant casualties along the way.

The most notable was Chris Patten, the party Chairman, who had his majority of 1,412 turned over by the Liberal Democrats in Bath. He was later appointed Govenor of Hong Kong. In total, nine government ministers lost their seats including the Overseas Aid Minister, Lynda (now Baroness) Chalker who was defeated at Wallasey. The 1992 election was also notable for some prominent figures who retired from the House of Commons. Margaret Thatcher, Denis Healey, Nigel Lawson, Sir Geoffrey Howe, Michael Foot, David Owen and Merlyn Rees all stood down. Betty Boothroyd became the first ever woman speaker in the new parliament, taking the Speaker's Chair on the 27th of April. See also: BBC Politics 97 Full text of the Labour manifesto Basic Principles The Labour Party grew out of a coalition of socialists, Marxists, social democrats, trade unionists and others. Some socialists like Tony Benn have traced the origins of the party as far back as the 'levellers' of the seventeenth century. Each strand of the party has brought its own ideological baggage or pragmatism to the party.

These strands have also seen their influence wane over the years and there have, of course, been changes in the party's beliefs. However, basic beliefs in 'progressive' politics, social justice, internationalism and 'democratic socialism' have remained constant - whereas much more debate has centred on the means by which these objectives can be achieved. Formally, the Labour party's annual conference is its supreme authority. The party is in effect 'under the direction and control of the party conference'. The conference agrees on party policy and also elects the National Executive Committee (NEC) which, 'takes the political and management decisions for the party outside Annual Conference.' The influence or power of the Party Conference in relation to the parliamentary leadership has varied over the years. History A Labour poster from 1922 The Labour Party was founded in 1900, under the name, the Labour Representation Committee (LRC). The LRC emerged from the Independent Labour Party set up by Keir Hardie in 1893. It was Hardie's mission to persuade the trade unions to withdraw their support for the Liberal Party and back the emerging labour movement.

By 1900 Hardie had gained the backing of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and the left-leaning Fabian Society to help set up the LRC. The purpose of this new party was to get working men elected to represent the interests of the working classes and the Labour movement in Parliament. The LRC name was simplified to the Labour Party in 1906 . By 1922 Labour became the official opposition for the first time. The first Labour government (a minority administration) took office in 1924 and lasted just 11 months. In 1929 Labour formed a second minority government which fared little better than the first, collapsing in 1931 when party leader, Ramsay McDonald, formed a National government with the Conservatives and Liberals. What remained of the party was now led by Arthur Henderson. In the 1935 general election Ramsay MacDonald appealed for continued unity... It was not until the second world war (1939-1945) that the Labour Party was to enjoy a sustained period in Government.

When the Conservative leader, Winston Churchill, formed a national government in May 1940, the then Labour leader, Clement Attlee and his colleagues Ernest Bevin and Herbert Morrison were all given Cabinet positions. In the general election of July 1945 , Labour were returned with a majority for the first time, to the surprise of most commentators and Attlee himself. Attlee's post-war government created an impressive record of social and economic reform during its six years in office. The National Health Service was established, coal, iron, steel and the railways were all nationalised and the British colonies of India and Burma were granted independence. The Party was not returned to office again until the 1960's. Harold Wilson succeeded Hugh Gaitskell as leader in 1963 after Gaitskell's unexpected and untimely death. In 1964 Wilson ended what he termed the 'thirteen wasted years' of Tory rule. But Labour struggled to manage the economy and were forced to devalue the pound in 1967. Wilson lost the general election of 1970 to the Conservatives under Edward Heath.

Wilson returned to office in 1974 after Heath proved unable to halt the industrial strife that was undermining the British economy. Two years later Wilson shocked the nation when he resigned as Prime Minister and leader of the Labour Party, to make way for a successor in time for the next general election. Jim Callaghan, the Foreign Secretary, became party leader and Prime Minister. The industrial unrest that had undermined Heath and the Conservatives in 1974 returned to unseat the Labour government in the general election of 1979 . During the winter of 1978-1979 (later dubbed 'the winter of discontent') widespread strikes crippled the economy, the resurgent Conservatives succeeded in pinning the blame firmly on Labour's shoulders helped by a highly effective series of election posters designed by the advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi. The slogan 'Labour isn't working' struck a cord with the voters and the Conservatives were returned to power under the leadership of Britain's first woman Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Labour responded to defeat by lurching to the left. A new leader, Michael Foot, was elected and radical new policies were proposed.

In 1981 the Wembley conference increased the influence of trade unions on the party conference itself in the selection of Labour parliamentary candidates. This triumph of the left prompted leading figures on the party's right to quit. Shirley Williams, Roy Jenkins, Bill Rodgers and David Owen set up the Council for Social Democracy, initially a pressure group inside the party which eventually led to the creation of a new political party of the centre right, the Social Democratic Party (SDP). Labour went into the 1983 general election proposing withdrawal from the Common Market and the abandonment of Britain's independent nuclear deterrent. The election resulted in a Tory landslide. Labour polled 27.6% of the vote, a post-war low, while the SDP/Liberal Alliance took 25.4%. A long slow process of rebuilding was now to take place. Foot was replaced by Neil Kinnock who went on to tackle the hard-left Militant Tendency, a Trotskyist splinter group that had infiltrated the party, in time for the 1987 election. After the 1987 general election, Kinnock said he felt the party had achieved some success...

1987 saw a slick Labour campaign fail to make an impression on Mrs Thatcher's majority, leaving the Tories to govern for a third term. Kinnock stayed on as party leader and succeeded in removing the electoral handicaps of unilateral disarmament and renationalisation in a bid to make Labour more popular with the voters. In the 1990s In 1990, John Major took over from Margaret Thatcher as leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister. The change of Tory leadership wrong footed Labour but nevertheless the party, under the leadership of Neil Kinnock, went into the 1992 election preparing for victory. By contrast Major's unpopular government was struggling to deal with the problems created by a severe recession. In the event Labour lost its fourth election in succession. Kinnock was replaced as leader shortly after the election by John Smith with Margaret Beckett as the new deputy leader. Smith was determined to press on with Kinnock's policy of modernising the party. In 1993 he succeeded in introducing One Member One Vote (OMOV) thus reducing the influence of the unions on both the party conference and the selection of parliamentary candidates.

Tony Blair Tragically, John Smith died of a massive heart attack on 12 May 1994 and Tony Blair became leader in July with John Prescott as his deputy. Under Blair, modernisation continued apace. In April 1995, Clause IV of the party constitution was re-written, removing Labour's historic commitment to nationalisation. Blair was determined to make 'new' Labour, as the party was now being called, more receptive to the free market and the middle classes. As Labour moved into the election campaign Blair gained the support of the party for his modernisation policies. Under the 'Road to the Manifesto' process, party members were balloted on party policy, leading Blair to proclaim that "For the first time a political party will be entering a general election with its programme for Government voted on by its members." This policy review resulted in five key policy pledges including reducing class sizes, fast track punishment for young offenders, cutting of NHS waiting lists, getting 250,000 unemployed 16-25 year olds off benefit and into work and a pledge to maintain low inflation. Blair's modernisation of the party and the move away from traditional Labour values caused some disquiet.

The re-writing of clause IV prompted the departure of some left-wingers to form the Socialist Labour Party on 1 May 1996. Labour's reliance on spin doctors and the strict party discipline imposed by Blair also caused some murmurs of discontent, particularly from Clare Short, the then Shadow Minister for Overseas Development. Labour ran into problems over the policy of all-women shortlists for parliamentary candidates, which had to be dropped after a tribunal declared the policy sexist. As well as policies laid out in the 'Road to the Manifesto' process, Labour has been working hard in recent years to shed its tax and spend image. As Shadow Chancellor, Gordon Brown pledged that if elected, he would not increase income tax for the life of a Parliament. Blair is committed to low inflation and intends to leave many of the Conservatives' market reforms in place. The party also tried hard to become the party of law and order in the mind of the public. Blair's famous pledge to be "tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime" was reinforced by Jack Straw: the then Shadow Home Secretary promoted a tough stance on juvenile crime and advocated curfews for 10-year-olds. The Campaign Labour approached the general election in good shape.

The consistently positive poll ratings and an impressive by-election victory in Wirral South augured well for Labour's general election performance. Even so, the spectre of 1992's defeat prevented even the most optimistic Labour forecasters from daring to predict anything like the landslide or record-breaking outcome that they ultimately secured. At the polls, challenges from Independent and "New Labour" candidates and from other left wing parties, such as Socialist Labour (which all won 0.2% votes or less), had minimal impact on Labour's 44.4% lion's share of the vote. Labour won 419 seats in total (including the Speaker's seat), up 146 on the previous Parliament. Their majority was a formidable 179. The landslide represented a swing of 10.3% from the Conservative to Labour. 183 of the 260 brand new intake are Labour MPs. New Labour, New Government Interesting winners included Gisela Stuart, who won the first marginal seat of the night: Birmingham Edgbaston, which had not been a Labour seat since 1922.

Two of Neil Kinnock's 1992 campaign team - Charles Clarke and Patricia Hewitt - both won seats. Along with a brood of Blairite twenty-somethings, the younger, more female-populated Commons also welcomes two ex-presidents of the National Union of Students, Lorna Fitzsimons and Jim Murphy. The election resulted in a record 120 women in Parliament, 102 of whom will sit on the Government benches. Blair has also selected an unprecedented total of five women for his first Cabinet - Clare Short, Margaret Beckett, Harriet Harman, Mo Mowlam and Ann Taylor.

John Smith (Labour Party leader) - iSnare Free Encyclopedia John Smith (Labour Party leader) 18 July 1992 – 12 May 1994 Monarch 18 July 1992 – 12 May 1994 Deputy 13 July 1987 – 24 July 1992 Leader 26 October 1984 – 13 July 1987 Leader 2 October 1983 – 26 October 1984 Leader 24 November 1982 – 2 October 1983 Leader 4 May 1979 – 24 November 1982 Leader 11 November 1978 – 4 May 1979 Prime Minister Minister of State for the Privy Council Office In office 8 April 1976 – 11 November 1978 Prime Minister 4 December 1975 – 8 April 1976 Prime Minister 18 June 1970 – 12 May 1994 Preceded by 12 May 

1994(1994-05-12) (aged 55) London, England Church of Scotland John Smith QC PC (13 September 1938 – 12 May 1994) was a Scottish Labour Party politician who served as Leader of the Labour Party from July 1992 until his death from a heart attack in May 1994.

Smith first entered Parliament in 1970 and, after junior ministerial roles as Minister of State for Energy (1975–1976) and Minister of State for the Privy Council Office (1976–1977), he entered the Cabinet at the end of James Callaghan 's tenure as Prime Minister, serving as Secretary of State for Trade and President of the Board of Trade (1978–1979). During Labour's time in Opposition to Margaret Thatcher 's Conservative government, he rose through the Shadow Cabinet , serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Trade (1979–1982), Shadow Secretary of State for Energy (1982–1983), Shadow Secretary of State for Employment (1983–1984), Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1984–1987) and Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer (1987–1992). After Labour leader Neil Kinnock resigned following the Party's surprise loss in the 1992 general election to new Conservative leader John Major , Smith was elected his successor in July 1992.

He continued Kinnock's moves to reform Labour, abolishing the trade union block vote at Labour party conferences and replacing it with " one member, one vote " at the 1993 party conference. However, his overall cautious approach to reform, which was dubbed " one more heave ", sought to avoid controversy and win the next election by capitalising on the unpopularity of the Conservative government. This frustrated many modernisers like Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and after Smith's sudden death in May 1994, he was succeeded as Leader by Blair, who undertook the subsequent re-branding of Labour as New Labour , winning the 1997 general election in a landslide. Contents 7 External links Early life This section does not cite any sources . Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed .

(December 2011) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message ) The son of a headmaster, Smith was born at Baddarroch, Dalmally , Argyll , the eldest of three children of Archibald Leitch Smith (1908-1981) and Sarah Cameron, née Scott (29 July 1910-January 1997). [1] At the time of Smith's birth his father was schoolmaster at Portnahaven, Islay, but two years later he became headmaster of the primary school at Ardrishaig, Argyll, which Smith attended. [2] From September 1952, Smith attended Dunoon Grammar School , lodging in the town with a landlady and going home during the holidays, before enrolling at the University of Glasgow , where he studied History from 1956 to 1959, and then Law , from 1959 to 1962. He joined the Labour Party in 1955. [3] John Smith's birthplace in Dalmally, Glenorchy.

He became involved in debating with the Glasgow University Dialectic Society and the Glasgow University Union . In 1962, he won The Observer Mace debating competition, speaking with Gordon Hunter. In 1995, after his death, the competition was renamed the John Smith Memorial Mace in his honour. In 1963 he became a solicitor and then in 1967, an advocate at the Scottish bar, supplementing his income by working as a libel lawyer for the Daily Record and the Sunday Mail. Member of Parliament Smith first stood as a Labour parliamentary candidate at a by-election in 1961 in the East Fife constituency ; he contested that seat again in the 1964 general election . At the 1970 general election , he was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for North Lanarkshire succeeding Margaret Herbison . Smith defied the Labour whips in 1971, joining Labour MPs led by Roy Jenkins who voted in favour of entry to the European Economic Community . These included Roy Hattersley , Shirley Williams , Bill Rodgers and David Owen all of whom he was later to sit with in the Callaghan cabinet.

In government In October 1974, Harold Wilson offered Smith the post of Solicitor General for Scotland . Smith turned it down, not wishing his political career to become sidelined as a law officer. He was instead made an Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Energy . In December 1975, he was made a Minister of State . When James Callaghan became Prime Minister, Smith became a Minister of State at the Privy Council Office , serving with Labour's Deputy leader, Michael Foot , the Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons . In this position Smith piloted the highly controversial devolution proposals for Scotland and Wales through the House of Commons . Smith's adroit handling of these proposals impressed Callaghan, and in November 1978, when Edmund Dell retired, Callaghan appointed Smith Secretary of State for Trade . In this post, Smith was the youngest member of the cabinet, and served there until the 1979 general election . Shadow Cabinet In the early 1980s, Smith was Shadow Energy Secretary . He became a QC in 1983, the same year that the constituency became Monklands East .

Smith acted as Roy Hattersley 's campaign manager for the party leadership election in October 1983 and after serving a year as Shadow Employment Secretary , was Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry between late 1984 and 1987. First Heart Attack Smith suffered a heart attack on 9 October 1988 and was forced to spend three months away from Westminster to recover. On that occasion, he had complained of chest pains the night before, and had to be persuaded to cancel a flight to London so he could go to hospital for a check-up. He was examined at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary by an ECG . The doctor who examined him said "Whatever it is, we don't think it is your heart". Then Smith suddenly collapsed and was briefly unconscious before coming around. He spent three days in intensive care before leaving hospital on 20 October 1988, and made a full recovery.

Smith made modifications to his lifestyle by going on a 1,000-calories per day diet, cutting down on rich foods and fine wines, giving up smoking and taking up Munro bagging and by the time of his death, he had succeeded in climbing 108 of the 277 Scottish Munros (mountains over 3,000 feet above sea level at the summit). His weight dropped from 15 stone 5 pounds (98 kg ) at the time of the first heart attack, to 12 stone 10 pounds (81 kg) when he returned to Parliament on 23 January 1989. Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Smith was appointed Shadow Chancellor by Neil Kinnock in July 1987 after the Labour Party's general election defeat. Despite a quiet, modest manner, and his politically moderate stance, he was a witty, often scathing speaker.

Smith was named as Parliamentarian of the Year twice: first in November 1986 for his performances during the Westland controversy , during which Leon Brittan resigned and second in November 1989 for taking Nigel Lawson to task over the state of the economy and over his difficult relationship with Sir Alan Walters, the Prime Minister's economic adviser. Smith made two notably witty attacks on Lawson that year. On 7 June 1989, he sang the theme tune for the soap Neighbours at the dispatch box, lampooning the differences between Lawson and Sir Alan Walters , who was critical of Lawson's policies but whom Thatcher refused to sack. Then on 24 October, he made another scathing attack on the differences. Two days later, Lawson resigned, followed shortly afterwards by Walters. Leader of HM Opposition Following Labour's fourth consecutive defeat at the general election of April 1992 , Neil Kinnock resigned as leader and Smith was elected Labour leader. Although Labour had now been out of power for 13 years, their performance in the 1992 election had been much better than in the previous three.

They had cut the Conservative majority from 102 seats to 21, and for most of the three years leading up to the election, opinion polls had indicated that Labour were more likely to win the election than the Conservatives. The resignation of long-serving but increasingly unpopular Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher , and the well-received election of John Major as her successor, had seen the comfortable Labour lead in the opinion polls wiped out and in the 17 months leading up to the election, its outcome had become much harder to predict. Much of the blame had been placed on Labour's "shadow budget" drawn up by Smith, which included raising the top rate of income tax from 40p in the pound to 50p, and the Conservative election campaign was centred on warning voters that they would face higher taxes under a Labour government.

[4] In September 1992, Smith made his maiden speech as party leader, in which he attacked the Government's ERM debacle eight days earlier - an event which was seen by many observers as playing a large part in determining the outcome of the next general election, long before it was even on the political horizon, as from that point onwards the Labour Party was ascendant in the opinion polls, winning several seats from the Conservatives in by-elections (eventually even attracting a Conservative MP to defect to Labour) and trouncing them in local council elections. In this speech, he referred to John Major as "the devalued Prime Minister of a devalued Government". At Labour's party conference, Smith branded Major and Norman Lamont the " Laurel and Hardy of British politics".

This echoed his attacks on Major's government made before the 1992 election (while he was still shadow chancellor), most memorably when he labelled "irresponsible" Conservative plans for cutting income tax to 20%, [5] and joked at a Labour Party rally in Sheffield that the Conservatives would have a box-office disaster with "Honey, I Shrunk the Economy" – in reference to the recent Disney motion picture Honey, I Shrunk the Kids – mocking the recession which was plaguing the British economy at the time. [6] In a June 1993 debate, Smith again savaged the Conservative Government, saying that under John Major 's premiership, "the man with the non- Midas touch is in charge. It is no wonder that we live in a country where the Grand National does not start and hotels fall into the sea" (in reference to the 1993 Grand National , which was cancelled after a false start , and to Holbeck Hall Hotel in Scarborough , which had recently collapsed off a cliff). This was in spite of neither of these events being part of the political or economic scene.

During the same debate, Smith commented on a recent Government defeat in the Newbury by-election to the Liberal Democrats , a poor showing in the local elections and a subsequent Cabinet reshuffle by saying that "if we were to offer that tale of events to the BBC Light Entertainment Department as a script for a programme, I think that the producers of Yes Minister would have turned it down as hopelessly over the top. It might have even been too much for Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em ". In the same speech, Smith also attacked the Conservatives' broken election promises (in particular Lamont's recent Budget decision to impose VAT on domestic energy bills) – claiming he possessed the last copy of a 1992 policy document "to escape the Central Office shredder". He also performed very well in the July 1993 motion of confidence debate on the Conservative government.

Despite his dispatch box successes (Smith was always more effective in the House of Commons than on platforms or at Prime Minister's Questions , though he began to improve at the latter towards the end of his life), Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were, under Smith's leadership, restless and privately anxious that the party had adopted a " One more heave " approach and had become over-cautious in tackling the legacy of " tax and spend ". Despite this, during his time as leader of the Labour Party, Smith abolished the trade union block vote at Labour party conferences and replaced it with " One member, one vote " at the 1993 party conference. He also committed a future Labour government to establishing a Scottish Parliament , an aim fulfilled by his successors after his death (most notably his close friend Donald Dewar ). Smith was also a committed British Unionist. During Smith's tenure as leader the Labour party gained a significant lead in the polls over the Conservatives ; on 5 May 1994, one week before Smith's death, the Conservatives suffered a major defeat in the British council elections, their worst in over 30 years.

This happened in spite of the strong economic recovery and reduction of unemployment which had followed the declaration of the recession's end in April 1993. [7] Labour's opinion poll lead was shown to be as high as 23% in May 1994. Death On the evening of 11 May 1994, with around 500 people present, Smith made a speech at a fundraising dinner at Park Lane Hotel , London, saying "The opportunity to serve our country—that is all we ask". At 8:05 a.m. the following morning, whilst in his Barbican flat, Smith suffered a fatal heart attack. His wife phoned an ambulance and he was rushed to Saint Bartholomew's Hospital where he died at 9:15 a.m., having never regained consciousness. On 28 April, a fortnight before his death, Smith had visited the same accident and emergency department to campaign against its proposed closure. The doctor who had served as his tour guide, Professor Mike Besser , tried unsuccessfully to save Smith's life.

In response to his death, John Major paid tribute in the House of Commons to Smith, culminating in the now well-known line, that he and Smith "would share a drink: sometimes tea, sometimes not tea". [8] [9] It was reported that there was weeping in the chamber. [10] On the day of his death, the BBC 9 O'Clock News was extended to an hour as opposed to the usual half-hour. This replaced the medical drama which was due to follow at 9:30, coincidentally entitled Cardiac Arrest . During Question Time that evening, panellists paid tribute to Smith instead of debating. George Robertson and Menzies Campbell were among the participants. Gravestone of late leader of the Labour party, John Smith, on the island of Iona, Scotland. On 20 May 1994, after a public funeral service in Cluny Parish Church, Edinburgh which was attended by almost 1,000 people, Smith was buried in a private family service on the island of Iona , at the sacred burial ground of Reilig Odhráin, which contains the graves of several Scottish kings as well as monarchs of Ireland, Norway and France.

[11] His grave is marked with an epitaph quoting Alexander Pope : "An honest man's the noblest work of God". [12] His close friend Donald Dewar acted as one of Smith's pallbearers. On 14 July 1994, a memorial service for Smith took place at Westminster Abbey and was attended by over 2,000 people. The Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey gave an address. Following Smith's death, the Labour Party renamed its Walworth Road headquarters John Smith House in his memory. Aftermath Tony Blair , Smith's successor as Labour leader, was highly popular and an effective campaigner and won a landslide victory in the 1997 general election . Smith's biographer, Mark Stuart, claimed that Smith could have won Labour a victory on a scale similar to that achieved by Blair because of the combination of the Black Wednesday debacle and Conservative divisions over Europe since 1992.

Stuart argues that the lack of a "Blair effect" would have meant that the Conservative Party would have held slightly over 200 seats (rather than the 165 it actually won) in the House of Commons, leaving the Conservatives in a position similar to that of Labour after the 1983 election . [13] Personal life Smith was married to Elizabeth Bennett from 5 July 1967 until his death. Elizabeth Smith was created Baroness Smith of Gilmorehill in 1995. They had three daughters, one of whom, Sarah Smith , has served as the Washington correspondent for Channel 4 news and now works for BBC Scotland . Their other daughters are Jane, a costume designer, and Catherine, a lawyer. [14] Further reading

Question: In 1992 Neil Kinnock lost the general election and was replaced as leader of the Labour party by whom?
Answer: John Smith